Analysis of Thunder Basin Public Workshop and Cooperative Working Group Meetings is Planned, Next Meetings this Spring

(DOUGLAS, Wyo.) February 2, 2018 – The U.S. Forest Service (USFS) is planning to query participants who attended last year’s series of collaborative Thunder Basin National Grassland meetings about the effectiveness of recent land management efforts. This analysis will be an important part of re-evaluating a dynamic situation and determining what a path forward could look like.

Analysis questions are being formulated by the Forest Service, with assistance from its’ cooperating agencies, and the University of Wyoming Ruckelshaus Institute will assist in conducting the assessment over the next month or two.

The next collaborative meetings, which had tentatively been planned for Feb. 9 in Douglas, Wyo., have been postponed and will likely be rescheduled for April.

Six combinations of public and intergovernmental meetings were held in 2017, with a primary focus on collaborating and cooperating towards prairie dog colony management on private, state, and Federal lands within and near the Thunder Basin National Grassland.

The Ruckelshaus Institute facilitated the meetings and subsequently created a summary report, which was released in Dec. of 2017. The report suggests implementation/action ideas for Grassland restoration and prairie dog colony management in 2018 and beyond. Online information can be found here, uwyo.edu/haub/ruckelshaus-institute/collaborative-solutions/thunder-basin/.

Hosted by the U.S. Forest Service, the meetings are part of a collaborative effort in northeastern Wyoming, which encourages open, inclusive, transparent, and consistent communications with all interested parties, specifically neighbors and users of National Forest System lands within and near the Grassland.